Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leibniz, G.W. | Stegmüller Vs Leibniz, G.W. | Stegmüller IV 388 Contingency/Leibniz: every thing is contingent, which is why it would not be so if another thing were different. All things are causally connected. The world is the totality of these things, which is why the world as a whole is also contingent! World/Leibniz: it may well be that the series of causes is unlimited. Leibniz does not necessarily assume a temporal beginning! Sufficient Reason/Leibniz: must then lie outside the world! It must be something else than the world! IV 389 He must be a necessary being. VsLeibniz: 1. How do we know that everything needs a sufficient reason? 2. Can there be a necessary being that has a sufficient reason in itself? If the second question is answered negatively, the totality has no sufficient reason! KantVsLeibniz: the cosmological proof is implicitly based on the (refuted) ontological proof. (See KantVsDescartes). IV 390 Existence/StegmüllerVsKant/StegmüllerVsFrege/StegmüllerVsQuine: the view that the concept of existence is completely absorbed in the existence quantifier is controversial! Existence/Contingency/StegmüllerVsLeibniz: we could understand necessary existence as negation of contingency. Problem: 1. the premise that the world as a whole is contingent (it would not exist if something else had been different) would have to be dropped: even if every part of the world is contingent, there is nothing to suggest that the world as a whole would not exist unless (sic?) something else was or would have been different. The conclusion from the contingency of each part to the contingency of the whole is inadmissible. Alternative 2: Contingency: something is contingent even if it could not exist. IV 392 This must be combined with the above remark that it would not be logically impossible that the claimed necessary being could not exist either. But this is incomprehensible. Sufficient Reason/VsLeibniz: (ad (i)): how do we know that everything must have a sufficient reason? So far nobody has been able to show a necessity a priori for this. That would not have any plausibility either: 1. It is true that we are always looking for symmetries, but there is no guarantee that we will always find them. 2. We are always within our world, extrapolations are not allowed! Even if now everything within the world had a sufficient reason, we would have no right to conclude on a sufficient reason outside the world. Common argument: things must be comprehensible through and through. MackieVs: that is not true at all! IV 393 We have no reason to believe that the universe is oriented toward our intellectual needs. |
Carnap V W. Stegmüller Rudolf Carnap und der Wiener Kreis In Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I, München 1987 St I W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I Stuttgart 1989 St II W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 2 Stuttgart 1987 St III W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 3 Stuttgart 1987 St IV W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 4 Stuttgart 1989 |
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